UK Anti-Porn Crusader Responds To Website Hack By Threatening Blogger Who Covered The Story

from the a-screenshot-is-a-hyperlink-and-reporting-is-hacking----got-it dept

One of UK Prime Minister David Cameron's anti-porn advisers (Claire Perry) recently had her website hacked and goatse'd. This story was picked up by one of Britain's more infamous bloggers, Guido Fawkes, who accompanied his post with a SFW screenshot of Perry's hacked site.

Perry, who has been instrumental in the push to regulate the web, porn-wise, took to Twitter to accuse Guido Fawkes of hacking her website.

Fawkes suggested Perry should "withdraw that defamatory claim immediately." Perry responded by threatening to call his editor at the Sun in order to inform his superiors that their contributor "gleefully publicises" the hacking of an MP's website. That's a very different claim than her first two, but Perry so far has refused to withdraw her claim that Fawkes was directly involved with the hacking.

[T]hreats of this kind are absolutely characteristic of the would-be bully who fails to get their own way on the internet and a key reason why so many bloggers have, over the years, chosen to write under a pseudonym, particularly those of us who write about controversial subjects and issues.

The people have spoken. Nearly three thousand of you voted in Guido’s consultation on whether he should sue Claire Perry for defamation after she accused him of “sponsoring” hackers to post porno pictures on her website. 2,404 co-conspirators said Guido should sue Claire Perry…

This has the possibility to be vastly entertaining, but a commenter named "Darrow" very succinctly sums up this "strategy."

A man who takes legal advice from a poll has a fool for Lawyer.

Whatever does result of this, it's obvious that Perry doesn't possess the technical knowledge she needs to act as an unofficial sidekick to Cameron on his anti-internet porn crusade. (Her actual position is Parliamentary Private Secretary to Phillip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Defence. In MoT's words, a "glorified bag-carrier" for a completely unrelated department.)

The Ministry of Truth also notes that Perry hijacked a recent summit between the Culture Secretary and internet service providers to push her agenda (and Cameron's). According to an insider, Perry took control of the meeting away from the Culture Secretary in order to pose lots of "if you can block this, why can't you block this" questions, ultimately turning the summit into a waste of time for everyone involved.

The insider claimed that little progress was made toward developing practical solutions to child abuse. “The Home Office opened with some encouraging noises about international efforts, but generally speaking the politicians there fundamentally – or wilfully – misunderstand the technical and legal aspects.”

“Little discussion was given to the measures put forward by industry, and any discussion of practical steps was closed down.”

The lack of "practical steps" hasn't stopped Cameron from proceeding with his plans, which apparently involve demanding search engines and ISPs do "more" but remain largely vague on what "more" should actually entail. (The few details actually nailed down on "more" seem to be redundant filtering efforts that do little more than allow Cameron to take credit for them.)

Perry's inability to understand the technology she's abetting David Cameron in regulating is par for the course for public servants. I'm sure part of the reason discussions between the government and tech companies fall apart so quickly is this lack of understanding of even basic terms. When government officials don't understand the terminology or the infrastructure, they tend to believe they're being misled or directly lied to when what they're hearing doesn't jibe with how they imagine it all works. This defensiveness leads to a lot of demands being made by frustrated politicians rather any actual progress towards a working relationship.

Even if Perry can't be bothered to nail down some basic internet terminology, the Ministry of Truth points her in the direction of one term she might want to familiarize herself with before firing off any other regrettable tweets.

What I would suggest, however, is that Perry really should take the time to acquaint herself with the meaning of the words ‘Streisand effect‘ before she starts trying to bully, threaten and libel bloggers.

Reputation Management

Except he is not asking whether he has grounds to sue (thats obvious), he is asking whether he should. It's moral advice, not legal.

I don’t think morals come into it. It’s a question of reputation management. Given Paul Staines’ strident criticism of English defamation law, would it be reputationally-damaging hypocrisy to sue?

As you’ve suggested, you can’t dismiss the accusation as trivial or as an honest mistake. It appears to be a calculating, malicious falsehood that he’d committed a crime. Wouldn’t Perry’s attack even be covered by American law?

I’m sure the idea is to get Perry to hand over a sizeable chunk of money, hurting her, which Staines can then give to a suitable children’s charity, making him look good. Of course, this doesn’t work if everyone calls him a hypocrite.

Re: Reputation Management

Defamation and libel are both suit worthy in American courts. I can't see how she's not guilty of both in accusing him of doing the hacking when he's simply reporting on it, and not recanting when the truth is brought to light. It's straight unfounded character assassination on her part, and uncalled for.

Re: Reputation Management

Potaeto Potawto..

He is looking for the moralistic opinion from the poll. Whether he is using that info it to truly make a moral decision for himself or just to protect his reputation by not going against other's morals just depends on how cynical a viewpoint you want to take.

If they are truly concerned about the children, they would simply pass legislation that says it is perfectly legal to carry out DDOS attacks on kiddie pron sites. Let the internet do what it does best, police itself.

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In the UK you shouldn't call it "child abuse content" either, because that implies that there is always "abuse."

The legal term is "indecent images of children", and there's a court ruling that say it is the "image" that has to be indecent, not the child. The image could be a self-portrait by a teenager, or a married couple, or could be adults with a random child somewhere in the background (or photoshopped in).

Yes, much of the stuff that gets people sent to prison involves child abuse, but far from all of the stuff that's illegal.

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Good point. 17 year old girls sending nude images of themselves to their boyfriends is still counted as child pornography. The end result is a collection of "child pornography" that's entirely consensual.

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As a non-lawyer, my legal advice is forget the defamation lawsuit because Claire Perry is spouting tweets that don't make any sense. It is the second tweet that is potentially defamatory but it all hinges on the meaning of "sponsored". The literal meaning of her first tweet is that her website contains a link to Guido Fawkes website that, itself, has a link to pornography. This is so contrary to the reality of the situation that it demonstrates either very confused thinking or extreme sloppiness in the use of the English language. I actually believe she doesn't realize that "sponsored" could mean that Fawkes was an accomplice in hacking her website.

Re: Re: A woman with such a poor understanding of how the web works

I would interpret it that way. No way that fatuous bint knows what the real world is like when you're on the other side of the financial divide, especially if you have the extra hardships of being elderly and/or disabled.

New Porno with Claire Perry

Someone needs to make a new porno with a Claire Perry look-alike.

I am not sure what it should be called, but something along the lines of "One Hoe to Screw Them All" and the plot is that her method of ending porn is to fuck all the porn stars in the world so they don't have to make any new videos.

Re: New Porno with Claire Perry

The woman has no clue what she is talking about. I'm all for protecting kids but these filters are over-reaching. The only way they could possibly work would involve far too much monitoring of your web use and invasion of privacy.

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Looking in the wrong place.

The insider claimed that little progress was made toward developing practical solutions to child abuse.

I'm reminded of this parable:

A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is."

In this instance, little progress is being made on the problem of child abuse because they're looking around the ISPs, but the crime they seek to prevent takes place in meatspace. The Internet may be "where the light is" because it's where it's easiest to encounter evidence of the problem, but it's not where the problem itself is.

Unfortunately, politicians score more politics-points by making a problem less visible (or just being seen vigorously going through the motions of searching for the keys) than by solving it outright, when the latter is more work.

with luck, Perry will be made to look publicly what she really is, a complete idiot, trying to get involved with those that could eat her for breakfast, if she ever allowed anyone chance to speak. having seen her in action, the only way she managed to get any sort of 'win' for want of a better term was to ensure that no one else had the opportunity to say a word. she is a dangerous woman trying to get above her station. Cameron would be wise to get shot of her, in a hurry, before she gets him to make a bigger bloody fool of himself and get a lot of young kids hurt in the process!! here's hoping she gets done good and proper in court over the defamation suit. perhaps this will teach her (and Cameron) that her mouth is far bigger than needed and open far too often!!